HOW HR PRACTICES REDUCE TURNOVER INTENTION: EXAMINING THE MEDIATING ROLE OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Abstract

This paper will analyze that human resource practices, namely servant leadership, training and development, and performance appraisal, have a direct and indirect effect on turnover intention with work-life balance as an intervening factor. It was based on the Social Exchange Theory, Conservation of Resources Theory, and the Job Demands-Resources model, and the cross-sectional quantitative survey was used, involving the collection of data about 347 full-time employees. Data analysis was based on two-stage PLS-SEM protocols applied to SmartPLS 4 and SPSS, with the incorporation of bootstrapping with 5,000 subsamples to test the hypothesis. Findings showed that the valence of servant leadership (b = 0.529, p < .001) and performance appraisal (b = 0.384, p <.001) were strong predictors of work-life balance but training and development was not (b = 0.077, p =.234). The work-life balance had a very strong impact on turnover intention (b = 0.938, p <.001). Mediation analysis verified that the work-life balance moderated the associations between servant leadership, performance appraisal and turnover intention, whereas training and development did not have any significant indirect influence on turnover intention. Ten hypotheses out of eight were accepted. The results indicate that the HR practices are functioning on two retention channels, both directly and indirectly via work-life balance, and prove that training and development decrease turnover intention with the assistance of other processes other than work-life balance. Implications on the theoretical and practical aspects of organizational retention strategies are discussed.